I haven’t created a mosaic quilt for about a year. I decided to try colors I have not combined in a mosaic art quilt before but are colors I use all the time in my tree quilts: green and brown with a smattering of yellow/gold.
If you are a quilter you can guess how many small pieces of fabric I have!! Thousands! It was fun to pull out the many zip lock bags and bins of greens, browns and yellows to find the colors and pieces for this quilt. In the past I’ve designed these mosaic quilts on my flannel wall but in the summer the AC vents are under my flannel wall. There is a good likelihood that the air will come on and flutter all the pieces off my wall…been there…done that! So, this time I used a large white board covered in flannel and designed this quilt on my large cutting table. I will never do this vertically on the wall again! It was so easy. I could stand up the flannel board once I thought I was done and stand back to get the same good view I had from the wall. I’m always discovering new strategies.
I design these quilts in vertical columns of pieces, varying sizes. Interestingly, I designed this quilt with the long side vertical and it wasn’t until I finished that I decided I liked the design better with the long side horizontal. I also added a step at the end which was new. I added a piece of either dark brown or dark green as the first and last piece on each strip. Plus I added an additional column on the left and right in dark brown. These mostly solid couple of inches gave me some wiggle room for the final trim once it was quilted. I always feel bad cutting off small mosaic pieces as I’m cutting for the finished size. As an added benefit I like what these added fabrics did for the design. Again…trying new techniques.
I like the way the light fabrics in the middle are almost luminescent, giving depth and texture to the art quilt. This art quilt has over 150 pieces in it. Most were about 2.5″ x 3.5″ with some smaller and a few larger.